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Former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman and Princeton Lyman, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria, will be part of a panel discussion titled "More Than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa," at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, March 31 in McCosh 10, on the Princeton University campus. Jennifer Widner, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School and director of the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, will moderate the discussion.

Panelists will discuss findings from a recent CFR task force report, co-chaired by Whitman and directed by Lyman, titled "More Than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa."

The CFR special report finds that Africa is of growing strategic importance to the United States in addition to being an important humanitarian concern. In a world where economic opportunity, security threats, disease, and even support for democracy transcend borders, a policy based on humanitarian concerns alone serves neither U.S. interests, nor Africa's. Further, the report finds that critical humanitarian interests would be better served by a more comprehensive U.S. approach toward Africa; nor is it valid to treat Africa more as an object of charity than a diverse continent with partners the United States can work with to advance shared objectives.

Whitman was elected as the first female governor of New Jersey in 1994 and served until her resignation in 2001. In January of 2001 she was appointed by President George W. Bush as Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While at the EPA, Whitman championed free market environmentalism voluntary initiatives promoted by conservative think-tanks and industry lobbies as an alternative to regulatory measures. In 2004, Whitman founded the Whitman Strategy Group, a lobbying consulting firm that works in the public and private sectors to manage and address complex policy and regulatory issues. She recently formed the political action committee called It's My Party Too-PAC, which aims to elect moderate Republicans in 2006 and 2008 at all levels of government.

Princeton Lyman, a former ambassador and former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs at the State Department, is an authority on Sub-Saharan Africa and issues of economic development; democratization and elections; civil reconstruction; conflict prevention; and HIV/AIDS. He previously served as executive director of the Global Interdependence Initiative at the Aspen Institute, and was a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace.

The event is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the University's Program in African Studies. It is free and open to the public.